The Scale With No Flaws
by Silver.ixx
Summary: (A modern Mozart story based on Kpop)Only one thing's on Hansol's mind, and that's to finish the rivalry with his classmate, Bjoo. At the Academy, only those with the best musical talents are permitted to study there, whether it be in the category of dance, rap, singing or composing. The students who make it then have to fight to be at the top of their class, with no time to relax.
1. Chapter 1

**Competition - to strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same**

A soft pitched note echoed throughout the equally soft room, and was received by two people. After a slight pause, several more notes followed. The person singing closed his eyes, feeling the music throughout his body. It was almost magical in that sense, the way it flowed easily. And it had to flow easily - there was no space for mistakes.

"Kim Hansol." A voice strictly interrupted the singing boy, causing the said boy to stop.

Lowering his hands from the table in front of him that he had habitually gripped during his performance, Hansol opened his eyes to see his teacher blinking quite rapidly, while fluctuating his gaze from the person in front of him to the papers on his desk. It was such an odd action - that is, one that was such a small detail to see, that it caused a slight feeling of nervousness within him. But he had learned not to let the uneasy catharsis break his concentration, so he waited patiently for the man in front of him to say something.

"Repeat the first line again. Start from 'your fantasies have all been broken'." The man's accent was odd; something was different from the usual Korean , the way that he pronounced the 's' in the word fantasies (hwansang) incorrectly with a plain 's' sound was the error - someone who has been speaking Korean for a fair while would know that it would be pronounced as 'sh'. Concluding that the man was British, and new to the country, Hansol nodded to himself, pleased at this small realization. He found great pleasure in figuring such an indistinct thing out.

It was not unusual for a person of different origin to be present at this certain location - Stardom Academy was known for being one of the top areas of musical education in the country. But the person named Kim Hansol did not think of himself as lucky - quite the opposite - he considered Stardom Academy to be lucky for having him study there.

However, today was somewhat different. He had been woken up not at all gently to the sight of Shin Jiho yelling at him to wake up and get to room B213 as soon as possible, for he had a new vocal teacher that wanted to see him whenever the time was best convenient for him. And that time would be at six in the morning, on a Tuesday.

But it was no bother really - he was used to the constant changes in his over elaborate schedule. For he learned to expect anything and everything.

So not even ten seconds of silence passed by from the moment his teacher spoke when Hansol began singing again.

A hesitant knock at the door prompted him to stop his singing for the second time that hour, and to stare at the door itself, waiting for the source to either enter or leave. He hoped that whoever it was would do the latter.

For he was selfish, and above all, knew it. As an off, but comparative topic, he would let the world explode as long as he was able to live. A fair trade, he deemed.

"Come in," his teacher coughed, waving in the direction of the door despite the person behind it not being able to see the haphazard action.

Hansol returned his gaze to his teacher. He couldn't even remember his name, most unlike him. Frowning, he searched his mind for the two words, before remembering that he was never informed of it.

"But it is not yet time to end my session," he began.

The man in front of him coughed again. "Yes, it is. Look at the clock."

And Hansol did, realizing just as soon as his teacher bent his head back down to view his papers, that it was, in fact, seven in the morning on a Tuesday.

"How….how was I?" He asked, a bit hesitant to know the answer. That was unlike him - he was always confident no matter what, or so he thought. He wrote it off as the new person giving off a new aura, one that troubled him, in that way ruling out the idea of nervousness.

But all the teacher in front of him said was a simple 'I'll let you know later'.

So, bowing slightly, Hansol made his way quickly to the door, with the purpose of letting someone in and himself out.

Opening the door, though, yielded a new surprise.

For it was Kim Byungjoo who was on the other side out the entranceway.

Soft, large eyes met cold, sharp eyes, Hansol being the latter, and everything happened at once.

On the outside, it was a simple matter of stepping aside with a small nod and holding open the door, but the inside was definitely different and much more chaotic.

And so, as both boys passed each other, nothing was said. Nothing at all.

But there was one word that kept echoing clearly in the person named Kim Hansol's mind.

 _Competition._


	2. Chapter 2

**Established - having been in existence for a long time and therefore recognized and generally accepted**

Since the time was about seven in the morning, Hansol knew he had half an hour to kill before going to his first class. Besides studying music, students at the academy also had to learn regular areas of education, such as mathematics and science, of course. His first class being advanced comprehension of reading and writing. Such a long title; he thought of it as quite unnecessary, but nevertheless went along with it, and that was usually how he did things.

Making his way to the men's bathroom, he frowned at the loud clicking noise that his black and white shoes made as he walked. He didn't like the attention it could give him, despite no one being present in the hallway.

Turning a corner, however, yielded different results.

"Hojoon." Hansol addressed the boy in his peripheral vision, the one who was currently scribbling something in permanent marker on the wall.

The boy jumped when Hansol spoke and dropped the marker from his shaking hands.

"What are you writing?" Hansol asked as politely as possible, while bending to better view the black marks on the white wall. "A-Tom, Kidoh, Nakta." He read.

The Knight kingdom was probably bullying Hojoon into doing another risky task for them once again, as those were the nicknames those boys in that group went by.

"Remind me why you are doing this?" he added, not at all concerned for the boy's negative behavior.

Pushing up his round glasses, Hojoon picked the marker up. "They told me too,"

"I see," Hansol walked away, leaving Hojoon to continue.

 _Hojoon is weak._

The person named Jeon Hojoon had started studying at Stardom Academy five months ago, and had already been marked by everyone as an excellent vocalist and someone who could be easily pushed around.

The reason why Hansol was speaking to him so politely all the time was because he simply did not want any conflict with him, especially because they were in the same kingdom - Wizard.

There were four kingdoms at Stardom Academy - Wizard, Lion, Knight, and Dragon. Each kingdom was in constant competition with one another to be the best academically in the area of music.

However, few knew about the rivalry _within_ each kingdom. Hansol was one that knew.

Loud chatter greeted him as he opened the door to the men's bathroom; quietly making his way to the sink to look at himself in the mirror, he did not notice the three other people in the room at first.

"Hey, Hansol." a snide voice said from a few feet away.

"Hello, Hyosang." Hansol merely said without making eye contact as he stared into the mirror to fix his blue-black hair. It was curling up slightly in the back; dissatisfied, he patted some water on it to keep it in place and walked back towards the door but did not exit, for he wanted to spur the others to talk to him.

"I saw Hojoon in the hallway." he voiced in a monotonous tone.

The three looked at each other before smirking; Sanggyun was the only one that laughed. "What was he doing?"

Hansol turned around to face them. "He was writing your fake names on the wall."

"Hey now, those aren't 'fake names', are they?"

Realizing his mistake and wanting to avoid conflict, Hansol quickly left.

Once in his class, he sat in his seat, closed his eyes, and simply waited for twenty minutes to pass. Not even two minutes went by when Jiho suddenly appeared. The purple-and-red-haired student flicked a pencil at the seated boy, who deflected it with ease. "Relax." he lectured, and sat in his seat beside him.

Hansol opened both eyes. "Jiho, that isn't your seat. Go sit in the back."

"Nah, I'd rather be with you." Jiho stuck his tongue out childishly and immediately began scribbling on his desk.

Sighing, the other boy leaned back farther in his chair and listened to the mixture of drowsy and excited voices from around him. Girls and boys always talked about the same repetitive topics - music, parties, and relationships. All unimportant to him except for one.

The class went on easily; Hansol was extremely intelligent, so learning wasn't a problem for him. The person beside him distracting him was, though.

And the hallway was once again noisy as the class ended.

Suddenly something hit him on the head, bouncing off as it did so. Looking around did nothing to inform him of the source, but that didn't really bother him. Picking up the object off the floor that had hit him - a crumpled up piece of paper - he put it in his pocket and walked into an empty classroom nearby, and sat back down again, opening the paper.

 _Lyrics._


	3. Chapter 3

**Perceive - to become aware or conscious of something**

Balancing on the desk wasn't a problem to begin with, but as his emotions got the better of him, the difficulty increased, so he decided it would be easier to sit in a chair instead. So, grabbing the back of the nearest chair, he dragged it to the desk and sat down in it, while so finishing the action of opening the paper.

Now he could see it better, and he couldn't hide back his disappointment. These were no lyrics, as the lack of flow and connections proved just that. It was just a simple paragraph written.

"I hate A4. I really hate school. All of my classes are boring. But you know what? I'm graduating soon, so I'll say goodbye to everyone. And guess what? I'll never have to put on a necktie again." he read, and then quickly crinkled up the paper back to its original state, therefore blocking his vision of the words.

He only hesitated for what seemed like a minute, before opening the paper once again. Reading over the paragraph once more came with the hope of inspiration, but yielded nothing at the current moment he was in, which was something of a blank mind.

And then, without revealing anything else by facial expressions or body language, he simply got out of his seat and exited the empty classroom, pleased to find out when he left into the hallway that it was almost devoid of people, signalling the implication of the beginning of the second class. For him, it was mathematics course 3.

Walking down the hallway to his classroom, he pushed the paper deep into the front pocket of his uniform, not giving a care to as if the content would be secure or not ripped when he would take it out again later. For that's what he planned to do, of course.

It wasn't an accident that he was hit with this certain object; in fact, he believed it to be fate, something he was a keen believer of. Thinking about it some more, Hansol realized how fortunate he had been to be in that random situation.

"I'll use this," he spoke out loud, but revealed nothing on the outside appearance. He was always like that, so emotionless, so cold.

He had no friends, really. Everything was fake. And along with everything came people. People were all fake, just masks in the world. Masks were beautiful, but also very fragile. They could be broken easily, if attempted. But Hansol's mask was above all - it would never be broken, nor discovered, and definitely not removed.

Jiho was his only friend.

And Hansol didn't even know if his friend wore a mask as well.

Walking through the doorway of his class, he found his seat in the front right section of the group of desks and sat up very tightly and still, his actions leading most to infer that he was something of in the state of raptivity and deep concentration.

Suddenly the door slammed shut with a loud bang, causing half of the students to flinch. Looking towards the left, Hansol saw that it was a substitute professor for the day. The man was blushing, seemingly at the unexpected noise he had caused.

"I am Mr. Jung, I hope that we'll all get along." he said, finding his way to the front of the room. Immediately a short shout came from the back of the classroom, quick to begin and quick to end. Hansol looked back to see Hyosang grinning, his legs up on the chair in front of him, in a relaxed, almost lazy manner.

But the other ignored it, as it was not to be of any concern.

The class then progressed for a few minutes, with the subject of equations written on the board.

"Who can tell me how x is related to the number two for this equation?"

Four people raised their hands. Hansol did not, for the risk of being wrong was too high in his point of view. He would rather seem of average intelligence and not stand out by raising his hand and guessing, rather than the option of risking the chance of calling out the wrong answer in front of everyone.

The Kingdoms were mixed in this class.

Feeling a trickle of sweat uncharacteristically drip down his neck, the boy simply waited for the professor to call on someone and get it over with.

 _The answer is negative thirteen since two has factors of one and two, with the number one being related to the singular exponent state of x,_ he thought to himself.

"Hey! You know 'bout me! Yano!" a gritty voice called out. "Let me answer."

It was Sangwon. Without waiting to be called on, he strutted up to the board and began swiftly writing with white chalk.

Hansol watched, curious to see Mr. Jung's reaction. But the man just stepped back and let the student solve the problem.

 _Interesting._

"The answer is negative thirteen."

"Yes." The substitute confirmed.

But instead of going back to his desk, Sangwon sat in the empty desk right next to the professor's. "I might as well sit in the front, since I'll be solving the problems the whole time." he said, smirking.

Hansol squinted his eyes, and willed himself to calm down. He hated whenever someone openly behaved like that, like they were better than everyone else.

But then, quite suddenly, his odd demeanor stopped. Sangwon had proved that he was capable of solving the rest of the math problems himself, so it wasn't a big deal if he behaved that way.

 _Fine._

And the rest of the day passed as it normally would any other day.

Once back in his dorm room, he sat down at his desk on his side of the room, and carefully took out the paper from his pocket. At the same time, he also opened the desk drawer and took out another piece of paper.

"Hi Maya, I like you. How do you feel about me?" he read from it again. It was something he had written a few years ago, but had not sent it to the person of subject yet.

Something he had written, but never sent for the pure reason of doubt.

Someone else just last year had caught his eye.

Someone named Byungjoo.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disconcernment - the ability to judge well and having the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure**

He was tired.

Drifting off into the calm wave of drowsiness, Hansol would have almost fallen asleep, had it not been for his roommate loudly entering, slamming the door shut and calling out.

"Hansol! I'm back, and I brought you something." He heard Jiho shout, but did not stir from his only slightly comfortable position.

CHINK. The odd sound spurred the partly sleeping boy to lift up his head and lethargically turn around to better view whatever had caused it. It was a can of soda that Jiho had placed on the opposite desk.

"Yes, but where are my music sheets?" Hansol asked, frowning.

"Ah," Jiho stopped walking and ran a hand through his interestingly shaded hair, squinting. "I forgot."

Sighing, the other boy pushed back his chair and stood up, stretching, gave his own unusually colored hair a quick brush, and made his way across the room to the door. Giving one last look at his friend, he smiled. "It's not a problem. I'll just go retrieve them now." He paused. "Thank you for the drink."

And he left, into the dorm hallway, not paying too much attention to the setting. Walking down the steps from the second floor to the first, he encountered a person sitting on the steps.

"Hojoon." he said, once again acknowledging the presence of the person for the second time that day.

The person sitting on the steps seemed a bit off, head bowed down, and staring at the floor. But he lifted up his head as soon as he heard his name being called, and Hansol was surprised to see the remains of tears staining the boy's face.

And he waited, waited for him to speak and inform him of the reason for his behavior.

But Hojoon merely sniffled, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

Seconds passed; Hansol found himself becoming more and more impatient with the person.

And so he left, passing him on the way. His steps echoed as he walked down the staircase, and he found himself wondering about Hojoon once more again.

 _Why was he crying?_

The sharp, cold air harshly greeted him as he pushed open the doors of his dorm building. There was no snow, but the February weather was nothing to be questioned at the least. As he made his way to the main building of Stardom Academy, he couldn't help but stare up at the windows, if anything hoping to see something in them.

But that was pointless, as he could not see past the dark material shading them.

Breathing in large amounts of frosted air, he couldn't help but think of another odd subject - memory.

 _How had Jiho forgotten his music sheets he had asked for earlier, but instead thought to buy him something to drink? Did he maybe switch priorities? But no, it is simple enough to follow orders from someone else, as opposed to imagining another new idea entirely, like retrieving a can of soda for example._

Visibly shaking his head, he briskly walked to the main building, refusing to look anywhere but forwards. Once arriving at the large doors and pushing them open, he retraced his usual steps to the room he had been present in only several hours ago - room B213.

 _Ah, but I had forgotten to get the music sheets for myself in the first place, so I am also an example of this memory crime._

The obscurely intense motion of the previous act in the room from before led the student to assume that to be the cause of forgetting to pick up his music sheets - in fact he blamed the whole previous event for his nervous behavior before in his math class.

So, to summarize, he blamed Byungjoo for making him feel that way and distracting his mind during that time. No, it wasn't as if the brief encounter at 7 o'clock with him had messed up his concentration because he was worried and uneasy or anything - it was simply because of the slight surprise he had experienced as he opened the door.

At least that's what he told himself as he shuffled through neat stacks of paper on the table in the small room, scanning the dark scribbles of pen on them for anything that would resemble his own handwriting. His signature was often quite sharp in presentation, as he held his pen in an abnormally sideways fashion and tended to just brush the pen lightly across the paper. That method gave it a more fading appearance.

After a few minutes of calmly searching through the ones on the table, Hansol then turned towards the professor's desk, giving it a hard glance, and briefly looked up at the door for some reason. All professors' spaces were strictly prohibited even from being touched, this area being one of them; the punishment for violating this rule was potential expulsion from the Academy.

And Hansol was not one for risking something so dangerous as that.

"It's not a matter of getting expelled and never getting accepted into another school again, it's more of a matter of reputation for myself if that ever were to happen." the student whispered offhandedly, while staring at his music sheets that he had just spotted on the desk. How unfortunate.


	5. Chapter 5

**Uninvolving -** **failing to engage someone's interest or attention; dull**

'Did you get your music sheets?' is what Hansol predicts his roommate to say as soon as he arrives back to their dorm room. He thinks this, as opposed to the boy saying nothing, since he concludes that the guilt of forgetting the said object in the first place would override whatever silence he was hoping to keep as to concentrate on homework.

 _Ah, that's right. I also have a lot of homework to do tonight, especially from my Music Theory class._

Walking up the stairs for the second time in the span of a half-hour, he took the time to brush his fingertips on the polished wood surface of the railing, the smooth property reminding him of his own voice. He couldn't help but to subconsciously look to see if Hojoon would still be there, crying on the steps. With this thought in mind, he turned the corner of the staircase.

It was empty, devoid of all students and their tears.

 _Where did he go? Back to his room? To another building?_

These intriguing thoughts aid in him evaluating cause and effect, but do not aid him in paying attention to his surroundings. A boy let out a squeak as he almost crashed into Hansol, since he had also turned around the corner, which was a horrible blind spot. "Sorry." The boy hurried down the staircase to leave the building, just as Hansol connected the voice to a name.

"Taeyang?"

"Uh, no. Sorry." the boy said again, keeping his head lowered as he opened the door to leave the Wizard's Dormitory. Hansol hesitated for a moment before finding his room and opening its door, the casual action which revealed the other person in the room to be in a state of complete juxtaposition.

Jiho was scrambling to take out specific papers from his folder, and was collecting the ones on his desk that were already out. Once he saw that Hansol was back he cleared his throat and tapped his fingers on the desk. "Did you get them?" he asked.

Normally, he would have been pleased by the correction to his previous prediction as to what Jiho would say, but something else more recent bothered him. "I saw Taeyang in this building a few minutes ago." he said, not answering the question.

Jiho's eyes widened for a second, but Hansol just writes that off as surprise that one kingdom member would be in another's dormitory area. "Are you sure it was Taeyang, and not another Wizard?" he says.

"I'm certain," the accuser stated, "It's odd that he'd be here with no real motive."

"...yeah." Jiho seemed to agree, but hesitantly so; he then focused back to the arrangement of the papers on his desk.

Hansol followed suit and went to sit back down at his own desk, making sure to properly shut the top drawer. He suddenly remembered his own homework assignments for the night and took them out of his backpack; he couldn't help but feel a little anxiety because of the late time. Turning around to face Jiho, since their desks were behind each others', he stared at his only friend's hand movements as he wrote something down on his paper.

It's something he had seen his roommate do countless times at this hour, but it still seemed to keep his interest nonetheless. Although this activity was boring, as the method was quite monotonous, Hansol still remained watching him for five more minutes before turning back around to work on his own papers.

Tomorrow he had piano lessons for second period, as opposed to the usual letter composing. Students at this academy were also expected to be able to play at least two instruments in addition to many other complex things. This school really was elite.

Hansol thought back to when he had received his acceptance letter - it was also on a Tuesday. He had been at a normal, regular high school in Busan, drawing some informal sketches in his biology notebook when his teacher had given the note to him. Even though that was only during his junior year he nevertheless moved within the day to an easier location - the academy dormitories.

The Kingdoms were decided on entrance, and the students had no choice or say in it. People picked to be in the Wizard kingdom had the fluency to be amazing dancers, people in the Knight kingdom could master more than the required amount of instruments proficiently, the Lion kingdom was for lyric composing, and people who were excellent at singing was placed in the Dragon kingdom.

Now, all students at the academy were great at all four categories, it's just that what they were best at was where they were placed. The four groups were mixed in classrooms and there was extreme competition, as said before, and fights often broke out. In hallways, in the classroom right under the instructor's nose, behind staircases.

The fighting was a big issue.

 _We had already lost someone because of that._


End file.
